SimpleDateFormat Parses "YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm" Incorrectly

When attempting to parse a string in the format "YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm" to a Date, some developers encounter unexpected date results. This occurs when using the SimpleDateFormat class with the lenient setting set to false.

The following code snippet demonstrates the issue:

Date newDate = null;
String dateTime = "2013-03-18 08:30";
SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm", Locale.ENGLISH);
df.setLenient(false);
try {
    newDate = df.parse(dateTime);
} catch (ParseException e) {
    throw new InvalidInputException("Invalid date input.");
}

This code produces an incorrect date:

Sun Dec 30 08:30:00 EST 2012 (wrong)

To resolve this issue, verify that the year format specified in the SimpleDateFormat pattern is lowercase "yyyy" instead of uppercase "YYYY."

SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm", Locale.ENGLISH);

By making this adjustment, the code will parse the "YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm" string correctly. Consult the SimpleDateFormat documentation for further information.